Has anyone heard of oven canning for dry goods? I’m wondering if this can be used to better store the goods made in the dehydrator?

It used to be an annual event for my family. It’s super fun, free, and pays huge dividends. It’s really not that hard to stay away from the poison ones if you limit yourself to the sponge bottom and tree varieties which are easy to identify (vs the gill ones).

I’ve been meaning to write an article about it. Must put it on my short list.

A food dryer is a great way to cut food costs for camping, especially backpacking. You can dry spaghetti sauce or applesauce and rehydrate them in plastic bags. For drying applesauce, my mother cut a sheet of plastic (one of those flexible cutting boards) slightly smaller than the dryer tray to spread the sauce on while still allowing air to circulate. Same thing for fruit leather, but we had to lightly oil the plastic first or the fruit would stick to it.

I have asked my husband for a dehydrator for my upcoming birthday. I hope he gets it for me.

This post was great and has motivated me to try dehydrating foods so that I can control the ingredients.

I have had tremendous good luck getting apples, apricots, small sour plums (for fruit leather and/or jam) and zucchini for absolutely free, or just the labor of picking. They are things people commonly grow here and either don’t eat at all or get very tired of before the season is over.

The other thing the dehydrator is great for is small batches – so if bruised peaches are on sale for a few dollars a lug, or you have one or two strongly flavored fruits (like mangos, limes, or strawberries) about to go bad, it’s easy to make them into a tiny batch of dried fruit or stretch them with applesauce and make a regular sized batch of fruit leather.

Care to share your cherry tomato recipe with us? It sounds wonderful!

One tip — I bought a shower curtain liner to use as a waterproof, washable tablecloth. I drape it over a card table, set up in the kitchen, and I use this as my processing station for slicing and removing the pits. Makes sticky cleanup much easier.

Also thanks for the link to the mandolin. I’ve been wanting one but most were quite expensive and seemed too fancy. This one looks like it would work well for us.

The issue I keep running into, though, is that there’s nowhere to get my pressure canner guage tested. This year I had to order a new one because the extension service here doesn’t do it.

Other dried things–I don’t care for those so much. We used to have jars and jars of stuff like mushrooms and apples and etc and it just sat around and eventually grew mold until I threw it out.

But canned veggies are wonderful. I particularly recommend canned brandied peaches–awesome over ice cream but watch out because they’re pretty alcoholic!

I wish I knew how to can string beans properly, but I don’t because I’m terrified of botulism. Apparently non-acidic fruits and veggies have this as a huge danger & if you don’t do it right you can’t taste or see it but you can kill yourself by eating the improperly canned food. Scary! My mom knew how to do it right but she died years ago and I never learned.

May I use your article in my blog at familyfoodies.com?
Thanks for the

This is one of those things I’ll keep in mind for the future when we are able to have a garden. Would love to hear about your pickles next!

I do the same thing with summer squash that you do with zucchini – i’ll have to try it with the zukes.

My other favorite, from fruit marked down for small bruises, is peach slices dipped in water with lemon or lime juice before they’re dried. It keeps the color and the little bit of sour is amazing.

It’s funny, as I look back at those zucchini chips, my stomach is rumbling… I’ve never even had one before, and already I know I would like it…